Moonfleet eBook

These were but the thoughts of a second, but the voices
were nearer, and I heard a dull thud far up the passage,
and knew that a man had jumped down from the churchyard
into the hole. So I took a last stare round,
agonizing to see if there was any way of escape; but
the stone walls and roof were solid enough to crush
me, and the stack of casks too closely packed to hide
more than a rat. There was a man speaking now
from the bottom of the hole to others in the churchyard,
and then my eyes were led as by a loadstone to a great
wooden coffin that lay by itself on the top shelf,
a full six feet from the ground. When I saw the
coffin I knew that I was respited, for, as I judged,
there was space between it and the wall behind enough
to contain my little carcass; and in a second I had
put out the candle, scrambled up the shelves, half-stunned
my senses with dashing my head against the roof, and
squeezed my body betwixt wall and coffin. There
I lay on one side with a thin and rotten plank between
the dead man and me, dazed with the blow to my head,
and breathing hard; while the glow of torches as they
came down the passage reddened and flickered on the
roof above.

CHAPTER 4

IN THE VAULT

Let us hob and nob with Death—­Tennyson

Though nothing of the vault except the roof was visible
from where I lay, and so I could not see these visitors,
yet I heard every word spoken, and soon made out one
voice as being Master Ratsey’s. This discovery
gave me no surprise but much solace, for I thought
that if the worst happened and I was discovered, I
should find one friend with whom I could plead for
life.

‘It is well the earth gave way’, the sexton
was saying, ’on a night when we were here to
find it. I was in the graveyard myself after midday,
and all was snug and tight then. ’Twould
have been awkward enough to have the hole stand open
through the day, for any passer-by to light on.’

There were four or five men in the vault already,
and I could hear more coming down the passage, and
guessed from their heavy footsteps that they were
carrying burdens. There was a sound, too, of dumping
kegs down on the ground, with a swish of liquor inside
them, and then the noise of casks being moved.

‘I thought we should have a fall there ere long,’
Ratsey went on, ’what with this drought parching
the ground, and the trampling at the edge when we
move out the side stone to get in, but there is no
mischief done beyond what can be easily made good.
A gravestone or two and a few spades of earth will
make all sound again. Leave that to me.’

‘Be careful what you do,’ rejoined another
man’s voice that I did not know, ‘lest
someone see you digging, and scent us out.’

‘Make your mind easy,’ Ratsey said; ’I
have dug too often in this graveyard for any to wonder
if they see me with a spade.’